libproperties

A simple library to parse properties. The rules for the format are as follows:

• Entries are generally expected to be a single line of the form, one of the following:

  • propertyName=propertyValue
  • propertyName:propertyValue

• White space that appears between the property name and property value is ignored, so the following are equivalent.

  • name=Stephen
  • name = Stephen

White space at the beginning of the line is also ignored.

• Lines that start with the comment characters ! or # are ignored. Blank lines are also ignored.

• A property value can span several lines if each line is terminated by a backslash (‘\’) character. For example:

targetCities=\
        Detroit,\
        Chicago,\
        Los Angeles

This is equivalent to targetCities=Detroit,Chicago,Los Angeles (white space at the beginning of lines is ignored).

• The characters newline, carriage return, and tab can be inserted with characters \n, \r, and \t, respectively.

• The backslash character must be escaped as a double backslash. For example:

path=c:\\docs\\doc1

• UNICODE characters can be entered as they are in a Java program, using the \u prefix. For example, \u002c.

TODOs

• Able to write comments with ! symbol.
• Multiline values.
• \u prefix.